"We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever," U.S. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton said on a visit to Berlin on Monday.

The three, Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, crossed into Iran from Iraq and their families say they strayed across the border accidentally.

"The three are charged with espionage. Investigations continue into the three detained Americans in Iran," Tehran general prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told IRNA.

I have to suppress a grim chuckle at the idea of our Secretary of State believing that any 'evidence' is required by Iran to convict these people. Her acceptance of such fairy tales speaks well of her retaining her youthful attitude.

One thing the dinosaur media is not mentioning is the factoid that all three of these hostages happen to be Jews, and thus open to charges of 'spying for the Zionist entity' as well as for the Great Satan. Given the rampant Jew hatred in Iran, using the usual Iranian methods to have them confess to being spies for Israel would probably be a smart move by the Mullahs.

Under Iran's sharia law, as Jews they are forbidden to speak or testify in their own defense and they can be hung if convicted.

Shane Bauer is a journalist from California with a degree in peace and conflict studies from Berkeley, and his credits include writing for Left-oriented pubs like the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Mother Jones and New American Media. He was captured with his girlfriend, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal, whose family originally came from Iran and who writes now and then for Jewish Week.

The idea that these three are 'spies' is ludicrous on the face of it. None of them are fluent in Farsi ( although Bauer speaks Arabic ), nor were they caught with the sort of advanced photographic or communications gear you would expect spies to have. And the trio were conducting their entire trip on a shoestring, staying in budget accommodations.

The al-Reuters story quoted above states that the Iranians are conveniently linking the three Americans straying across the border with the unrest that erupted after Iran's presidential election back in June.

Except the Americans were arrested when they crossed the border a couple of months later, in August and were never in Tehran, where most of the rioting occurred. But such is the mystical power attributed by the Iranian mind to the insidious Jews.

You see, the 'Zionists' must have magically willed it all to happen, and then, like the notorious djinn they are simply crossed into Iran to examine their evil handiwork.